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“Because I don’t have to,” he answers curtly.

“So?”

“So?” he echoes, sounding affronted. He peers down at me, maybe to make sure I’m serious. “I’m confused. Why should I eat or drink if I don’t need to?”

“Because it’s fun and it tastes good—well, except for my Aunt Milly’s fruitcake. That shit tastes like a dirty asshole. But yeah, food tastes good, as does the hot chocolate you squandered a minute ago.”

“Tell me,” he says, “if I indulge like a human, how am I better than one?”

Oh geez. “Can we not make everything into some lofty battle between good and evil? It’s just food.”

He doesn’t respond for so long I think he isn’t going to, but then he finally says, “I will think over what you’ve told me.”

After that, the two of us are quiet.

Hate the silence.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually comfortable being alone in my own mind. There are always things like philosophy and literature, history and politics to think about. And when those lofty subjects get dull, there’s the normal slew of noise to fill my head, like remembering to do my taxes on time, or figuring out how to, logistically, host a family get together in my matchbox apartment, or mulling over what used books I’m going to blow my paycheck on.

But right now my mind isn’t that old, reliable friend it once was. Every time the silence roars in, my mind drifts to that plague victim I tended to, or the fact that more are dying with every kilometer we travel. Worst of all is when I ruminate on the man at my back. I’m still his prisoner, but the longer I’m around him, the more muddled my feelings are.

I press my hand against his horse’s neck. “‘Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before …’” I murmur to myself.

“What are you speaking of?” Pestilence asks.

“I’m quoting ‘The Raven.’ It’s a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.”

Pestilence makes a noise at the back of his throat. “I should’ve known that brief flash of eloquence was not your making.”

“Do you even have the ability to speak without insulting me?” I say.

I swear this bastard is just trying to kill my morning buzz.

“Of course.” I can hear the smug smile in his voice. “It is just that there are so very many things about you worth insulting.”

If this hot chocolate weren’t so precious to me, I’d dump the rest of it on Pestilence’s pig head, consequences be damned.

I think the horseman is waiting for me to clap back at him—to be perfectly honest, I think he enjoys verbally sparring with me—but he up and ruined Poe, so I’m not going to give him anything else.

When the silence stretches on, the horseman says softly, “I enjoyed that bit of poetry.”

I let out a huff.

Not going to take the bait, pretty boy. Not even when I really want to—because,Poe.

I begin stroking Trixie’s mane, the horse’s white hair silken beneath my fingertips.

“Tell me about yourself,” Pestilence demands.

I bristle at his tone. Said so high-handedly, like I’m here to serve him. Not to mention that the last few times I’ve tried to chat with him, he was rude.

“No.”

That response gives him pause. I can almost feel him studying the back of my head.

“You are such an odd creature,” he says. “One moment you tell me you won’t stop talking, and the next you refuse to.”

He’ssotrying to bait me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the horseman was quickly developing an appetite for conversation.